Monday, April 2, 2012

Week Three: Spring

A bit of nice weather has come our way. The air smells green as little shoots unfold from plants shaking off their dormancy. As always around this time of year, rabbits too come out of hiding and can be seen everywhere. While many are hopping, many are scattered on the roadside having met cars.

I arrived home to find Chance and Elle basking in the sun. As they greeted me I saw Elle had dirt on her nose. I wondered where she had been digging. I grabbed their leashes for our walk. All the rabbits I had seen lately had me a bit gun shy about the first episode of Elle meeting a rabbit on our walks. She's a 115 pound sight hound. We tested those waters today with a cat. Cat, rabbit, both are small fuzzy mammals.

Elle and Chance both were entirely too interested in the cat when we came across her. Yet my arm remains in my socket and they did keep walking, albeit slowly, and with their necks twisted backward so they could view the cat. Personally, I thought it was a success. After today I realized that the rabbit encounter may go better than I think.

When we returned home I began tackling the chore of picking up the poops. The first poop I came across looked odd. I put on my glasses. Was it a dead bird? I couldn't find a beak. I poked around with a stick flipping it over. Was that fur? The fur had been carefully licked so that it was sticky and standing straight up. Four legs and a tail, a baby, headless, bunny. Not all rabbits will lose their hop due to cars this spring. If I had to guess, I believe the head is likely buried in one of the two freshly dug holes in the garden area. I asked the dogs and they aren't talking.